Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Tuesday 9/1/09)

Amen, Amen…

Nehemiah 8:5-6 (Amplified Bible)

⁵Ezra opened the book in sight of all the people, for he was standing above them; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.

⁶And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with faces to the ground.

During this season in my life prayer has become as important to me as eating and breathing. I have learned that communication with God especially during these times when I could lose heart and become easily distracted is integral to sustaining life, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. As I closed a prayer one day I could hear, myself say amen. But it was what stirred on the inside that became a sign and signal of revelation being revealed. Within my spirit I could hear amen, amen. As if my spirit was sealing the prayer. As I looked up what Amen meant. I learned that it meant “so be it!” “So be it.” is an affirmation that God is able to do what we have asked and more. But it is also telling God we believe and that we honor Him.

How many times have we prayed and as soon as we closed the prayer or stood up we were hit with a trial, temptation or a stream of doubt? If you are anything like me, it has probably been more times than you probably care to admit. We have so much that can rattle us if we let it or take what God has already said was ours. But it is that Amen, that “so be it” that seals our prayers in the natural and in the spiritual. As I thought of how many times over my life I had prayed and how many times I had said Amen, but had not for one minute taken the time to understand the impact of that Amen upon me and upon that prayer prayed. I had no idea that Amen was a means of praise, a means of worship and a means to seal my prayer, in heaven and in the earth. But now I understand just as Ezra blessed the Lord and the people responded “so be it.” That to should be our response to God. We should be able to respond in faith, we should be signaling God that we believe that no matter what it may look like we choose to worship, praise and serve Him, and to believe that He is able.

Today as we commune with God and we make our request known. Whether it is a time when we are closing out a time of praise let it be settled in upon our hearts, our spirits and in the atmosphere. Seal your time with God in belief and in a renewed faith, let the peace of God that surpasses all understanding take you to a place where you can say, Amen, Amen…Knowing it is settled for you!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Monday 8/31/09)

Today’s Devotional Written By A Young Woman Who Is Not Alone In Her Journey: Tracy Koweh

Will You Be Flying Solo?

Deuteronomy 11:13-14 (New Living Translation)

¹³ “If you carefully obey all the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and soul, ¹⁴ then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil.

Today’s message in the music comes from Maxwell’s hit song “Pretty Wings”. The song has such a beautiful title and melody, that it’s almost impossible to know it’s a sad song. The message of the song is about Maxwell letting the woman go he loves, for her to be able to spread her wings and fly again.

At first glance I didn’t get how this song applied to anything related to God because in the song Maxwell messed up. But then God told me to focus on the chorus:

If I can’t have you, let love set you free to flap your pretty wings. God was saying that sometimes no matter how much love He shows, there will always be some souls He will never win into the kingdom. The thing that I love about My God, is that he has given us free will. He lets us choose to love Him or not. Choose to obey Him or not.

As Christians sometimes we do what we feel and hide under that umbrella of His grace and mercy, but the Bible says its better to be ice cold than lukewarm. God is in a season where He has opened up the windows of heaven and He is pouring unto His children………right at the heart of the world’s recession. The problem is that God is tired of playing the game with some of us.

He is at a point where, if He can’t fully have our hearts, minds, and souls……..He is going to set us free. There is a line in the song where Maxwelll says he has to see how it will truly feel to not have her in his life. For some of us, if it takes losing God completely to find Him again, get ready to call a search team- - -because God is about to do a disappearing act in your life.

Today as we prepare to begin another week, let us abide in the shadow of the most high and truly appreciate all that God has done for us. The Bible says that He’ll never leave nor forsake us, but we can leave Him. So before you lose out on the greatest pilot you’ll ever be blessed to fly with, sit down, strap up and let Him take control. Happy flying.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Friday 8/28/09)

Today’s Devotional Written By A Young Woman That Is Opening Up As A Flower In Bloom: Tracy Koweh

Time for a Re-Fill

Psalm 27:8 (Amplified Bible)

⁸You have said, Seek My face [inquire for and require My presence as your vital need]. My heart says to You, Your face (Your presence), Lord, will I seek, inquire for, and require [of necessity and on the authority of Your Word].

The other day I was talking to one of my closest friends about an emotional breakdown she was having on her birthday. She was very upset and all over the place in the moment. The next day she had decided that her breakdown was because she had ran out of her prescription drugs that help control her feelings.

I closed out my email wondering how a person could need medicine to help keep their emotions in check. So the past few days, God thought it would be a good idea to let me live out the answer to my question. Sunday night my daughter came home from her daddy weekend and wasn’t feeling too well. By Monday night she had a temp of 105 and we were in the ER until 230am. The doctors told me that she had pneumonia AND a double ear infection. So needless to say, I was home from until yesterday.

Well, I had some serious and potential life changing moments happen throughout the week. There were days I had lost complete control of my emotions. My mind was the devil’s playground, and he was riding every ride at the park. I had completely drove myself and the people around me crazy. Then Thursday morning on my ride to work, I began to do my morning prayer………………when I realized the last time I had spent that type of quality time with God was the last time I was driving to work in the morning.

The Holy Spirit instantly flashed back the difference a dose of Jesus will do. I hadn’t even noticed how important my spiritual medication had become to day to day survival. I immediately thought back to the conversation I had earlier in the week with my friend, and I said to myself “I’ve run out of my prescription”.

Today as we prepare to head into the weekend, let us not forget to have a daily dose of Christ. If all you can handle is one pill a day right now, start from there. Jesus is the only drug, that an overdose won’t kill you. The doctor is in…………..let Him heal you.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 8/27/09)

In The Fullness Of Forgiveness II

Hosea 3:1 (New Living Translation)

¹ Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.”

I have been so blessed to meet so many beautiful men and women from around the world. My thoughts were how different we must be because of where we come from. Although our differences are evident, we have similarity, in love, marriage and how we handle forgiveness within the confines of relationships. I have met people from all different walks of life that have been touched by divorce, separation, broken homes and shattered families. But the dynamic that struck me about most of them is that these relationships that have landed in this predicament were mainly because of two circumstances that allowed the enemy access to their relationship and allowed him enter in and take them down. The first one, being pride mixed with a large heaping dose of intolerance and the other is unforgiveness. As I sat and looked through my minds eye over my own relationships and those of others, it was evident to me that something had to be missing for these things to occur. It was God at the center, His love at the root and His command to forgive as a basis for existence.

Hosea was a chosen man of God, a prophet. His wife however was far from the virtuous woman. She was a woman of ill repute. But even when Gomer went outside their marriage relationship, and had another man’s child, God told Hosea to go and exemplify his love to his wife again, as an example of His love and forgiveness for His chosen people. Why love? Because it is the catalysis for forgiveness, but contrary to what many of us think, it has little to do with our love and our abilities, but everything to do with God’s love, and abilities. You see even when we are at our end; God is just beginning. He has an endless supply of anything that we need, we only need to tap into the greatest resource for forgiveness and life that we have available. You see there is no offense to hard for God, but many are too hard for us. Anger, mistrust, humanity all play a part in why it can be impossible for us, but if we are in the midst of God, in the circle of His love that love and all of its characters should be ours as a witness, to all we encounter, beginning with our family first and reaching out from there.

So Husband’s love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, wives respect your husbands for this is right before the Lord. Children obey your parents that you may live long upon the land that God has given. Neighbors love each other as yourself. As we obey these commands of the Lord through love and understanding we will find that forgiveness and tolerance will become a part of us. We will find the more God is present in our lives the more we have the ability to love, forgive and even forget, because truly, greater is He that is in us then he that is in the world or any circumstance that we may encounter!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Wednesday 8/26/09)

In The Fullness Of Forgiveness…

2 Corinthians 2:9-11 (New International Version)

⁹The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. ¹⁰If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, ¹¹in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Yesterday I was having a pretty serious conversation with my children. It was a conversation that no parent hopes that they have to have, but if it is necessary to have you do with compassion, understanding and care. My children like so many others are a product of a broken home, not once, but twice. The pain that comes as a result of this action can be devastating and overwhelming. You find mistrust and anger seem to sometimes become their companion, because they don’t always know the road to forgiveness, and even if they find the road it is sometimes hard for them to walk the path without encouragement and reasoning to find healing. My children although they have a mother, who has prayed for them, loved them and encouraged them, are no different. The issues that they face still challenge them to see passed the offences to the person, and to love them in spite of.

This is not just children, but so many of us as Christians, mature in our declaration and strong in our proclamation of the word, find ourselves walking in a place where we refuse to forgive. We are bound by our own hurts, offences and injustices felt, that we stay captured by the claws of unforgiveness. We see ourselves so much so that we become intolerant of others mistakes. But what if God took our attitude? What if God decided to be so offended and steadfast in His unwillness where would we be? We all would be receiving judgment that we deserve, but would rarely be able to endure. God for Christ sake has forgiven us. It was Jesus’ act of going to the cross and dying for you and I that afforded us the privilege of forgiveness, but it is our ability to forgive others that gives us access to forgiveness, as a means of renewal and eternal life. In the place where the fullness of forgiveness abides, there God’s love and compassion abides and it serves to remind us that “there but for the grace of God go I. It reminds us that our stuff really does stink and we do not have it all together as we often think we do, but in spite of that God desires us. It is also a place that serves as an alter where we can go to lay down our hurts, pains and offences and see God’s mercy and grace, the mercy and grace that He has shown us and the mercy and grace that we should show to others.

As you start this Wednesday, the middle of our work week, ask yourself this question, have you been abiding in the fullness of forgiveness? If you know you have been, then ask yourself have you been extending the fullness of forgiveness to others. If the answer is no, it is time to change your plan of forgiveness; because God requires of us to give what He has given to us, especially in the area of forgiveness. It is time to step it up and learn to forgive in a whole new way knowing that God forgives us in a way where...it is new every morning!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 8/25/09)

A Part or At The Center….

Revelation 7:16-17 (New International Version)

¹⁶Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

My god daughter and I were having a conversation about how sometimes when you have been used to sharing a space, (namely a bed), it is difficult to sleep in the center. For the center is in the middle of the bed. It is the core of the bed and every side surrounds it. But there was something I noticed after we had that conversation. When I had slept on a side or a part of the bed, there was a risk that I had never thought much of, which was that I could fall over the side if I twisted or turned in the wrong way. I also noticed that I was only utilizing a piece a part of the whole and not the whole. I sat and was shocked that God was saying that is what we do with Him.

How many times have we heard people say I am making God a part of my life? Or I myself have said my relationship with Christ is the biggest part of me. Had I and so many, been missing something all this time? Indeed we had, as I sat and pondered God’s analogy, I found myself humming, Jesus you are the “center” of my joy. It had become quite clear in that moment that God was saying why I am only a part, when if you place me at the center I become the focus. I become the person that all else surrounds. It is when God is placed in His rightful place as the center, the core, the all of who we are that our lives can change. Our lives can become safely seated in Him. He becomes the cure to every illness and the help in times of distress and need. He becomes the hand that keeps us from falling. He becomes the entirety of the situation and not the partiality of the circumstance. For when God is placed at the center He becomes God all by Himself (to us), and it becomes relevant in our lives.

Today is a good day to see how much of this life you live belongs to God. Is he hanging off the side, or balled up in a corner, or does He have the center, free reign to speak into our lives. Can He instruct and we listen no matter what? Does He have authority, even when you don’t want Him to? Is He our source and not just our resource? I realize now that I need Him to be Lord and Savior, and I need to have Him sitting on His throne at the very center of all that I am and ever hope or need to be. How about you where is He in your life?

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Monday 8/24/09)

Today’s Devotional Written By A Young Woman Of God Who God’s anointing Falls A Fresh: Tracy Koweh

Let Him Love You………..

1 John 4:8 (Amplified Bible)

⁸He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.

Today’s message in the music comes from Ruff Ends “Someone to Love You”. The song is about being hurt so long you’ve began to expect it. It’s about being abused so long by those who claim to love, that you don’t know how to freely experience true uncontaminated love.

I’ve experienced relationships throughout my life from many who claim to love me. From my parents, family, friends, and guys I dated. The other day I sat and really thought about who said they loved me, and who showed me. As far back as I can remember my father has not been a constant in my life. I can recall the many times I sat waiting from sun up to sun down on the front porch only to be told he wasn’t coming. On the other hand, I can recall the Sunday School services and the Vacation Bible School summer classes my grandma forced me to go to every year.

Now to this day, my dad speaks of his undying love for me, yet I can’t get him to send me a letter in the mail or call me faithfully once a week. Although my early memories of my grandmother are of me hating life and her making me do things I hated, in 28 years she has never missed one birthday, one Christmas, my baby shower, or the birth of my babygirl.

God is like my grandma. When we are still children in the faith, He has to force us to do things we sometimes don’t like to do, or understand how they play into the grand scheme of our destiny. Sometimes He places us in situations to help us grow and mature, but he is always there. No matter how hard God is on us, He doesn’t miss one milestone in our lives. He is there for each and every breakthrough, no matter how big or small.

Today as we prepare to enter another week, let us open our hearts and minds to be loved in a way that only God can love us. Men and women alike, let us experience love like we’ve never known it. Throw away old mindsets, old memories, and old preconceptions. Today tell God, your heart is in His hands…………..and watch Him take all the hurt and pain and fear away.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Friday 8/21/09)

Into Me Not Intimate with Me…

1 Corinthians 2:12-14 (New Living Translation)

¹² And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

¹³ When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. ¹⁴ But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

I remember when I was younger, I was a cheerleader. My story was not typical, because I was not in the elite crowd at school, as many cheerleaders are and were; I was sort of the middle of the road. I did not have a lot of friends, just a few close friends, and they were not people I went to school with. But it was strange, because when basketball season came around and I was an active part of cheerleading it seemed as if people I went to school with paid more attention to me and guys that would normally over look me, were “into me.” But it was those true friends that I had that knew before and after cheerleading that kept me grounded and focused. They knew me intimately. They saw me on good days and bad, and everyday in between. They loved me in my clothes that were not fashion worthy and when I sported that short cheerleading skirt. They knew me by heart, they knew me by spirit and that was what held our relationship strong through the highs and lows and changes we all encountered over the years.

As I thought about this era in my life, I could feel that God wanted me to see something, about how we treat Him. You see it is fashionable to confess being a Christian; it is acceptable in the world’s venue to say that “Jesus is their Lord and Savior, without any intimate knowledge of who He is. You see for so many of us church is something to do on some Sunday’s when it does not conflict with our sleep pattern, our schedule to hang with friends and family, or when we feel that Sunday is significant ( like Easter, Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day ). Many of us are still hanging on to that same scripture we heard Grandma recite over and over at Family functions, or that verse we had to commit to memory for Sunday School so many years ago. Even worse still, are those of us who sit in church Sunday after Sunday and still have not let God in, and allowed him to get close enough to love us into obedience, His truth and His will. We know of the word, we live parts of it that suit us, but we do not get real with God or allow Him to get real with us.

As you bring this work week to a close, ask yourself this question, how intimate am I with God? Have I let Him touch me in my secret places, and love me in a way that rocks my very existence to a place where I would rather die than to hurt or disappoint Him. Do we know Him, in such a way that I can feel His heart beat so close to mine and feel the sweetness of breath upon my life, or am I looking at Him as one who is far away, or He is just someone you read about. Or is God the one that Grandma told you at the kitchen table as a child that you never bothered to really know for yourself on His terms not your own. It is time to strip down and bare it all. It is time to be naked before God and let Him see all that you are and you to see all that He is; for us to connect with Him to the point where we do not know where he begins and we end. It is time to stop being “into” God and get “intimate” with Him!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 8/20/09)

Today’s Devotional Written By a Young Woman That Is Really Never Satisfied, Ever Striving for Better: Tracy Koweh

Never Satisfied

Psalm 84:2 (Amplified Bible)

²My soul yearns, yes, even pines and is homesick for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out and sing for joy to the living God.

If you were in the Garden of Eden, would you have noticed the tree? The story of the garden is common knowledge of the first man and woman on Earth. Gave placed Adam and Eve in what can only be described as a paradise. They lacked for nothing. They yearned for nothing. They needed nothing. They had everything…………but still had to have more.

I love that I serve a God of free will and choice, but man was that part of the story cold blooded. Why put the tree there, if they were not supposed to eat from it? Why tease the first man and lady of the world? Well, plain and simple, it’s not a choice if there is no option for something else.

That same greedy desire within Adam and Eve, continues to live on in each of us. How many happily married spouses, have still stepped out and tasted the forbidden fruit? How many spoiled children have demand more toys, more games or more money, and done nothing to deserve it? How many rich people dabble in crime, because they crave more money, power, and prestige?

The funny thing is that we get a dose of God on Sunday and that’s supposed to hold us over all week long. The sad thing is that most people attempt to eat 3 full course meals A DAY, but can’t give God 30 seconds to pray over those meals. The only thing in our lives we should never be satisfied with, is our relationship with Christ. He should be the only thing we can’t get enough of.

Today let us determine in our minds to be satisfied where we are, and to crave more and more and more of Christ.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Wednesday 8/19/09)

The Deeper The Hurt, The More Profound The Anointing…

Job 42:10-15 (Amplified Bible)

¹⁰And the Lord turned the captivity of Job and restored his fortunes, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

¹¹Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they sympathized with him and comforted him over all the [distressing] calamities that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money, and every man an earring of gold.

¹²And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.

¹³He had also seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴And he called the name of the first Jemimah, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch.

¹⁵And in all the land there were no women so fair as the daughters of Job, and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.

I was reading a Christian Fiction novel the other day and the main characters within this novel endured a trial that rocked their (what seemed to be), perfect existence. It struck them at their very core, and laid them to waste in a very public forum. This story line had struck a cord with me. As I continued to read, they met with their Pastor and their Pastor explained that the greater the trial the greater the testimony and the greater the anointing would be on that testimony and on the lives of these two characters. In books or in life this is truth! I have been privilege to travel, and meet many people, from many different backgrounds. But the one thing I have found is something universal, that those who have encountered trails that cut them deep, that had devastating effects, or the trials that basically could have driven them to the edge and pushed them over; when they have been tried in such a way and they have had God or found Him in the midst of this type of turmoil, they have come out stronger, bolder, more anointed, more blessed, and closer to God.

Today I was texting with a friend who is dear to me. God had been dealing with she and I alike and we were sharing. It seemed in the last year and half or more the two of us had been through one form of hell or another. She shared with me that she felt behind, and that she would have been further ahead in the call on her life and what God was doing in her had she not, gone through such things and gotten distracted, in the midst of what felt and appeared to be overwhelming circumstances. Those words wrung true and relevant again in my spirit, it was about the deepness of who cuts, the deepness of her bruises and the deepness of her hurt that God was using what she had been through to catapult her into new levels in Him. Genesis 50:20 (Amplified Bible), “As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day.” It is when every one can see us as we are suffering and watching how we handle ourselves, when people are watching us bleed everywhere and they do not even lift a hand to help or gesture that they care, it is in these times of sorrow, and mourning, that God is yet leading us to a place of power and praise. A place where our words will exalt him and will reveal truth and deliver, those we come in contact with. It is when we lose so much of ourselves that we need so much of God to make it right that we come into a place of being chosen, and set aside for His glory!

What is it that you are going through, that seems so unbearable and hurtful? What has cut you so deep that you feel like you are on verge of bleeding to death, or has hurt you so bad that you do not feel as if you have another tear to cry? Whatever it is, if you are in Christ it may not be what those around you may think. It may not be a curse, or a punishment of disobedience. It may be the breaking of day, the re-creation, and resurrection that will give you power, and dominion over sin, sickness and even death. You see this is not a sickness or a trial unto death, but it is the one that gives new life and new strength for you and those you are blessed to minister to or share your life with!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Tuesday 8/18/09)

Letting Your Flesh Take You, Where Your Spirit Won’t Go…

2 Corinthians 10:18 (New Living Translation)

¹⁸ When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them.

When I was growing up, the saying “don’t let your mouth write a check your behind can’t cash,” was used, quite freely. It was a metaphor for don’t let your words take you to a place that the rest of your can not live up to. It was not unusual to have people that would talk a whole lot and have nothing to substantiate the words that came from their mouth. Likewise, even today, as an adult I have found that often we will talk a good game, but there is nothing to back it up. I love to talk about the internet, because I am always surprised by people and the things that they will do on the internet, not excluding most things imaginable. But I think the irony that surfaces often is how often we see the status or title of “Christian” attached to some things that even by the world’s standards are outlandish. My pastor a few weeks ago was referencing another dynamic of our times, the fact the on many of the award shows that artist will perform or have a CD out and they use every profane word, degrade woman, and speak of killing and then they get up to accept an award and the first thing our their mouth is “I like to give honor to God who is my Lord and Savior” or they say, “for without God this would not have been possible.” How could God be in the mix of stuff that is contrary to His word and who He is?

For many of us we title ourselves Christian and we even have the flow of scriptures, we have the right phraseology and we can hold a sanctified conversation when we are called to do so, but we regularly want to set the rules by which we serve God. We want to allow anger to lead us into sin, and say well God knows my heart. We want to allow the lust of the eye and the flesh full reign in our lives and say that “God is still the head of our lives.” We want to allow pride, conceit and haughtiness dominion over us and say “God made me this way.” We want to post half naked or naked pictures on the internet and we try to justify by saying “well, God gave me this body, why should I be ashamed.” We have sexual relations outside of the confides of the marital bed and then we want to fall down and pray before or right after and say “well God knew I wanted to anyway.” We will let our flesh rise up and leads us into many situation and think that God’s sweet Holy Spirit is going too, but when we are allowing our flesh dominion, God’s stops at the door saying I will wait for you here, I can not and will not be apart of that.

I had someone I knew that was doing something that was contrary to will of God when they were asked did they pray about the situation, they turned and asked did you pray about your situation. They did not want God’s conviction and they did not want to be accountable to anything but the flesh. For they knew if they stopped and availed themselves the God, they would not be able to appease the flesh. God was not in control, but the flesh was…God sets before us each day a right to choose whether we serve our flesh or Him. For some of us the choice is simple there is no other way, for others of us there is always another way. Where will you be going today and who goes with you? Are we going the way of the cross or the way of our flesh? Will God be able to go everywhere we dare to go or will he have to sit portions of our day out?

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Monday 8/17/09)

Today’s Devotional Is Written Through The Strength Of The Holy Spirit By One Amazing Young Woman On A Journey With Her God:

Tracy Koweh

In Spite of Who I Am……

Romans 8:1 (Amplified Bible)

¹THEREFORE, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.^(A)

Today’s message in the music simply comes from the title of Beenie Man’s song “Who am I”. This past few weeks have been a very strange balancing act for me. The deeper the word God was giving me, the greater temptation that was around me. Of course looking back in hind sight now, I see it so clearly in the spirit.

After the whole Kelly incident, I was determined to start over. Pick up from where I was and move forward……….problem was, I didn’t let God take over completely. I gave him control over the areas I wanted Him to handle and I took the rest into my own hands. Needless to say I made some huge mistakes these past few months. Some I’ve learned from, and some were pure disobedience. But the part that got me, was that God never turn away me from. Each time I came back, He was there.

My pastor preached several sermons on no condemnation……but it almost just gave me a new and fresh slate each week to dirty up again. Then it happened. Last week I had to write two of the hardest blogs of this journey. They were hard because they caused me to feel every line of them. God even had me send it out to people who had no idea I wrote a blog……yet alone an inspirational one. Well, this past weekend I almost fell again. I didn’t. I got as close to the edge as possible, but I caught myself. I had somewhere along the way, decided to not take his grace and mercy for granted and then I got the email that broke me down.

The email was from one of my “non-church” friends. One of my girls who knew the crazy side of me, and so it made me vunerable to send her the blogs last week. She wrote to tell me how much the message had touched her and that she was now ready to make some changes in her life. She had no idea how that email got the tears falling on my face. It was in that moment I realized………that in spite of my selfishness, my disobedience, my ego, and just me……..God still choose to use me. He still decided to show up and not let me hinder the blessings of others.

So today I want to say THANK YOU JEHOVAH, for not giving up on me. For loving me when I didn’t realize I hadn’t learned to love myself all the way. For letting me know, that although I fell down- - -I could get back up. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Today, let us start fresh and make a real effort to love God with all that we are, in spite of our family, friends, fame, fears and flesh.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Friday 8/14/09)

First I would like to say Yesterday’s Devotional Was Written By A Very Insightful: Tracy Koweh, for some reason the header did not paste…

Only God Can Judge Me…

Psalm 75:6-7 (New International Version)

⁶ No one from the east or the west
or from the desert can exalt a man.

⁷ But it is God who judges:
He brings one down, he exalts another.

The internet is an interesting place, especially the social sites; you will see all sorts of things and read some very interesting comments. One of the comments that I have frequently read was “Only God Can Judge Me,” this comment or tag line is often associated with people’s profile or page that are using this phrase to justify the way that they live. It is a proclamation that says to all who read it, I don’t care what you think, and I will live as I please, because only God is my judge. Through my nature eye, I use to read this and want to scream, after reading, the content that it was being used to justify, but one day God began to show me something very interesting. He asked, did I know why the divorce rate in the church was higher, than in the world, did I understand why people in the body of Christ often lived a more compromised and sinful existence than those outside of church? It is because we have begun to justify, rationalize and accept man’s jurisdiction and wisdom over His. My mouth about hit the floor as I realized this stark reality, and I sat on my bed stunned at the reality that had now become my responsibility.

How is it that we have come to look to people, ourselves, and the law before we look to God? Why do we seek the wisdom of man before we seek the wisest one who ever lived? It is simple, it is responsibility. To seek God and to adhere to His ways, judgment and jurisdiction would mean that we would have to be responsible to do many things that our flesh does not want to do. It would mean we would have to begin to take responsibility for our mistakes, misgivings and mess ups instead of blaming others. If we honored God with our lives and sought Him before man we would be responsible for others, it would cease to be all about us and our ways, feelings, and wants. It would be about God’s feelings, ways and wants for our lives and the lives of those we are accountable for. Not too long ago our Pastor dealt with issues within the women in our Church. He caused us to realize, through the ministry gift of the Holy Spirit that we are responsible for how our daughters turn out ( good and bad), if they are a hot hootchie mama, that is probably because the apple does not fall far from the tree, ( it was not just that area but any other attribute), we had to begin to look in the mirror and ask God to deal with our issues and take responsibility for our sins, so that they would not continue to be manifest in our children.

Isn’t it time to stand facing the man or woman in the mirror, and ask, this question, “is God really my judge,” or is that I am setting my own rules, playing by my own play book and letting the standards, dictates and advice of man out weigh the voice and unctioning of God. As you enter THIS weekend, let today be the day that God deals with you in the area of your level of responsibility, let him really be your judge, if you do, you might be surprised at what he reveals to you and allows you to see!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 8/13/09)

Today’s Devotional Written From The Heart Of: Tracy A. Koweh

What If You Knew?

Matthew 24:36 (New Living Translation)

³⁶ “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.^[a] Only the Father knows.

Today I attended a memorial service for a beautiful woman who died of a heart attack at the very young age of 44. She was scheduled to retire the 28^th of this month. Everyone who spoke at the service said the same things about her. What a great mother, person, woman, sailor and human being she was. No one spoke of the hell she was going through with her would soon be ex-husband. Instead everyone spoke of how she choose to be the light to those around her, in spite of the darkness within her four walls.

The reason D’juna’s death has been so hard to deal with, is because it came so sudden to all who knew her. It came as such a surprise. She was in the prime of her life. She was about to retire and enjoy her two children, who she did everything for. As I sat and cried the reality of how short life truly is hit me. As I listened to the words spoke of my friend, I realized how precious each second really is.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Wednesday 8/12/09)

Today’s Devotional Written By The Ever Growing, Ever Insightful:

Tracy Koweh

Back Against the Wall

Proverbs 3:5-6 (New Living Translation)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
⁶ Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

This past weekend I attended a women’s lock-in at my church. This year I decided to go through the 30 min self defense class. I knew I was going to learn some awesome moves to help me better protect myself, but I wasn’t prepared to have a spiritual moment in the midst of learning how to fight back

The first question asked by the officer was “What’s the first thing you do when you’re under attack?” Although the correct answer was - -PANIC- - -it was the wrong reaction to the situation. See when our bodies feel threaten we naturally tense up or panic.

When the officers said relax when a man grabs you by the neck and pushes you up against a wall, I thought he was crazy. But then I remembered my labor with Jaida. As painful as my contractions were, the simple act of breathing got me through an epidural-free birth. Each time a contraction hit, everything in me wanted to tighten up, but when I got it in my mind to relax and breathe through the pain, the rest of it was a piece of cake.

In life…..jobs, friends, family, money, fear and so many other things become our attacker. They become the thing that has us by our neck and backed up against a wall. We feel we have no where to turn or run. It seems as if there is no escape route in sight. Well, all you have to do is relax and let God take over. When you relax it confuses your attacker and makes it easier to knock him down, or causes him to lose his balance.

Today as we prepare for hump day, let us relax and trust in God to fight our battles. When situations come at us to discourage us, tear us down, or discredit us…..let us not panic, but instead plan to let God have his way. Don’t panic, pray. Don’t freeze up, have faith. Don’t give up, just look up.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 8/11/09)

Even When I Don’t, He Does, Even When I Can’t, He Can…

1 Samuel 2:2-10 (New International Version)

² "There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.³ "Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed. ⁴ "The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. ⁵ Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away. ⁶ "The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. ⁷ The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. ⁸ He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. "For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world. ⁹ He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. "It is not by strength that one prevails; ¹⁰ those who oppose the LORD will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth. "He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed."

As I listened to an author relay her testimony, of how God wanted her to stretch out in faith and quit her job and write full time. The thickness in the room was evident; everyone was waiting to hear the outcome of the inner struggle, to which she was in the midst of. Entering into a place where we have no earthly idea how something is going to get accomplished, or how it would even be remotely possible that God even in His Omnipotence wisdom could guide us through such a time. In her story as in many other stories, her obedience won out and she did what God was asking of her, but even in her obedience there was no instantaneous gratification, she still had to wait and trust and wait and trust some more. This reminds me of swinging at a piñata blind folded. You know it is there, you are trying to focus and get the direction right, but we feel as if we are swinging blindly, but not really.

In my life recently God has reminded me of some things that He has instructed me to do. I could not make heads or tails of them, and I have had no idea how they are going to work out, but I started the faith walk towards those tasks that He has so graciously entrusted me with. I still have no idea how many of these things will come to past, or where the resources will come from. In some cases I doubt the very ability that I have to accomplish these things. But one thing that I have had to come to realize, is that it is not for me to worry about the details, it is for me to understand the directive and obey. You see God is responsible for the hows; we are the vehicle by which these things are to come to pass. “Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world.” God’s strength and His possibilities within us are limitless if only we can yield to His promises and His will. When we look at God’s promises we usually see them in the very confines of human existence, but it is when we remember we serve a God that even the winds and waves obey that we can even begin to embrace the possibilities that God says are facts in our lives.

Today as we are faced with things that we have no idea how they can work themselves out, or how we can accomplish all that is set before us, we must remember who we serve and His ability to do the very impossible. They say love is blind, it blocks anything negative. If we really love and trust God are we not blind to the impossible, and open to God’s possibilities. Start your book of possibilities today, with God out in front!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Monday 8/10/09)

This Devotional Is Written By A Voice To A New Generation: Tracy Koweh…

Tired of Fighting

Matthew 11:28 (New Living Translation)

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Today’s message in the music comes Tina Turner’s “I Don’t Wanna Fght No More”. The chorus of the song is basically about her reaching a point in her relationship that she has given up her right to fight. She just wants peace by any means necessary.

The past few months of my life, I’ve been in a battle with God. Not that I ever had a chance at winning, but I just didn’t know how to let go and trust Him. I wasn’t taking verbal swings at God, but I wasn’t trusting in Him either. I was letting every day stresses control me. I was operating in fear and not truly stepping out on faith. I got to a place where I almost thought just ending it all, had to be easier than the life I was living.

Well, I thought God would swoop in and fix everything………since I had given Him a V.I.P. invite to my pity party but He didn’t. God simply told me to let Him know when I was ready to stop fighting against His will and ready to just rest in Him. I thought about how bad things were going for me and the people who had recently hurt me, and then I thought about the cross. I thought about the REAL pain Christ suffered, and at the hands of people He only tried to help.

Today as we prepare to start another week, let’s take off the boxing gloves and pick up a pillow. Let’s not go against God’s will another day and live in fear, pain, or doubt…..but instead let’s turn it ALL over to Him and take a good long nap in our Father’s unfailing arms.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Friday 8/7/09)

Is Your Connection Clear?

Colossians 2:18-23 (New Living Translation)

¹⁸ Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, ¹⁹ and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.

²⁰ You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, ²¹ “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? ²² Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. ²³ These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.

I have a special type of ear piece for my cell phone, it is called a jaw bone. It is suppose to be one of the top of the line ear pieces for blocking out outside noise and giving the phone user a clear transmission and reception. My ear piece seemed to work fine until I broke the piece that goes around my ear, that holds the ear piece in place. Although my ear piece is usable I almost have to hold it in place to receive the quality that it once provided me with no effort. You see the ear piece is the same, but one broken element has caused an interruption in the clarity of the reception.

God aligns us with people for specific reasons in our lives. Some people come into our lives for a moment to give us a glimpse of something that God may want us to learn. There are some people that come into our lives for a season, they are there for a specific reason, to give us some things and to take some things away. Then there are those people that God had designed and designated to be apart of our lives for a life time. These people are designed to be teachers, partners, confidants, mentors, friends and precious commodities within our lives. It is sometimes difficult for us to identify what the connection is between us and people that come in our lives, because “we” are looking for specific things, and instead of letting God take the lead and develop and determine the relationship we do it ourselves. We try to make it what we want it to be instead of what God has ordained it to be. We can try to reshape and reconnect things endeavoring to make a clear connect, when all the while God has identified this person for something totally different then what we have; if only we had let God lead the way, we would end up with less drama, heartache and upset. Because God does all things well and with His direction our connection to individuals we encounter would be clear and concise.

As you enter the weekend, and we think of those that are in our lives in one way or another, it is important that our connections to them are clear. God wants us to let Him take the lead, so we do not end up being lead off a cliff by relationships that we have tried to develop into something they were never ordained to be. “He that has an ear let him hear what the “Spirit” is saying to the church,” That’s you! God has a plan for all of us that includes our connections to one another, and He will make clear the connections if we let Him!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Thursday 8/6/09)

It’s Not The Size Of The Trial, But The Way You Look At It…

2 Kings 6:13-18 (New Living Translation)

¹³ “Go and find out where he is,” the king commanded, “so I can send troops to seize him.”

And the report came back: “Elisha is at Dothan.” ¹⁴ So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.

¹⁵ When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.

¹⁶ “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” ¹⁷ Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.

¹⁸ As the Aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please make them blind.” So the Lord struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.

The other day my daughter curled up in bed with me and wanted to watch a movie. I told her she could choose. She chose a movie called Penelope, it was a movie about a girl that was cursed at birth and her nose was replaced by a pig’s snout. Throughout the movie, her mother loved her but was always trying to find a way to remedy her daughter’s disfigured face; she tried to force her into marriage. As Penelope endured ridicule and being ostracized by many, she found herself faced with a pending marriage that would be loveless, but was thought to be something to break the curse over her. She decided to turn away from what she and others had seen as an opportunity afforded her to be freed from this bondage or curse. As she locked herself in her room to avoid the pressure of her mother and others, she came to the realization that she liked herself, just as she was, in that moment her snout disappeared and a nose appeared in its place. You see what she found was the power to break the curse lay within her all along, but she had been looking, at it all wrong and had been looking for a solution in the wrong places. As I watched the ending of the movie a poignant point was point out it was said “it is not the size of the curse, but how you look at it.”

How many times had I been in the fire, in a trial, or in a test and found myself, dreading every waking hour, or hating my life as I knew it to be? It was because all I saw was what I was going through, or how much pain I was in. I was focused on the magnitude of the situation, with no thought for who I was and whom I belonged to. I was looking at the angry waves, and the stormy seas that surrounded me, instead of seeing I had been redeemed from the curse of the law. I saw my bank account being low, or a husband being gone, or a friend’s lost, or sickness that was overwhelming, instead of remembering who was on my side, and who was my Lord and Savior. So many times we will let what we see, overtake us, so that we forget what is there that we do not see. We are seeing, but we aren’t really looking at it with the eyes of God or the mind of Christ. Recently, as I have endured trials, I have not looked at the illness, but been thankful for another day that I could see my children make another step towards adulthood, I have looked at how blessed I am in spite of what I do and don’t have. I look at the fact that God says in my weakness He is strong. I look and see that greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. I also have been able to see that God must have enough confidence in me to know that I can make it through with His help, because He has made me more than a conqueror!

As you are faced with test, trial and tribulations, remember whose army you are apart of and who is fighting beside and for you. Open up your eyes and see that God is before you and He alone is more than the world against you. That all that you are going through is for your making not for your breaking (no matter what people may say). Trust God and see yourself, healed, delivered, strengthen and prospered. Keep your eyes on the fact that God is able even when we are not! Remember He’s Able! That means if you are in Christ, that makes you ABLE too!